What Raj Yog teaches us about the self behind the 'I'

The foundation of all spiritual growth and personal development is the awakening of self-awareness, while at the heart of all spiritual traditions is the pursuit of Self-enlightenment.

Most people, however, are not yet self-aware, and most of them are not aware that they are not aware! Because personal enlightenment is not built into our education. Hence, it's expedient to explore the true nature of self- awareness and what it means to be enlightened. When you identify yourself with something you are not, then stress, unhappiness and emotional disturbances arise. It requires a deep understanding of why we think and feel the way we do.

To overcome this identity crisis, we need to know that we are essentially no other than a being who is conscious of being. We are simply the 'I'. As soon as we put something worldly after 'I am', then some kind of suffering sooner or later occurs, simply because we start identifying or relating with something we are not. Whatever we put after 'I am', whether it's a name, a nationality, a position or a profession, an ideology, it's not 'we'.


In essence, the moment we react emotionally to anything or anyone, it's a sign we have lost our sense of self in something or someone we are not. Even in an argument, we are attached to, and identifying with, a belief. Or when we react to a glass falling and breaking, it means that, in that moment, our sense of self is lost in the 'image' of the glass.

Raj Yog meditation takes us to a state of awareness and inner experience that we are basically a soul - pure, positive, sensible and a sentient point of divine light, between and behind the eyebrows, originally peaceful and blissful.